This week saw the announcement of the official route the mens & ladies 2012 Olympic Road Race will take, and boy is it impressive. And I mean impressive because its the area that so many of the UK's cyclist based in the south will be familiar with. To think that hallowed Olympians will thunder among the same roads as us mere mortals is pretty incredible, albeit they will be chuntering along significantly faster than the hallowed Sunday roll outs to Surrey. The route takes in classic landmarks such as Richmond Park (will the participants have time for the infamous 3 Lap Challenge?) and hammers out repeats up the classic climb known to all us city dwelling grimpeurs, Box Hill.

Its pretty incredible that as London cyclists, such a monumental event is going to take place right in our backyard. Now comes the dilemma for me - do I book the day off work and venture out with friends to camp up on box hill armed with a serious camera - or do I work and help distribute the images from the race, calling on my encyclopedic (err.... scary as colleague prefer to say) knowledge of riders and teams? Well I guess I have over a year to mull things over! Anyway the full route is as follows >

Heading south-west from The Mall taking in Westminster, Kensington and Chelsea, Hammersmith and Fulham to cross the Thames at Putney Bridge and into Wandsworth.

Continuing into Richmond and into Richmond Park en route to Richmond Bridge where the race again crosses the Thames.

Heading south and through Bushy Park to Hampton Court Palace and Hampton Court Bridge where the race enters Surrey.

A large loop in Surrey taking in Walton on Thames, Weybridge, West Byfleet, West Horsley and Dorking.

From Dorking the race repeats a challenging 15.5km circuit around Box Hill including the National Trust’s Zig Zag Hill. This loop will be repeated multiple times for the men’s and women’s events.

The race then returns to central London through Leatherhead, Esher, Hampton Court, Kingston and Richmond Park before using the same route back to The Mall.

Thank you for giving us the local’s scoop on the route. It looks like a fantastic ride; scenic and challenging, especially down by Box Hill. Would enjoy trying it some time! So, do you think they will enforce the cake stop? More seriously, will the finishing kilometers be selective enough to avoid a mass sprint?

I envy you, miss B., whatever you decide for the day of the race you will have a great exiting time (although I also would lean towards taking the day off...). I vividly remember our Olympic days here in Athens, I had the best of times not only during cycling events, but the whole Olympic period (working for the Organizing Committee, but on a day-off during Cycling race road day...).